TERRAFORMING TERRA
We discuss and comment on the role agriculture will play in the containment of the CO2 problem and address protocols for terraforming the planet Earth.
A model farm template is imagined as the central methodology. A broad range of timely science news and other topics of interest are commented on.

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

One aspect of psychoactive chemistry that i wish to comment on is that all forms appear to positively affect all forms of mental illness in some way or the other. This is a broad generalization but nonetheless, it appears more true than false. More specifically, we rarely see evidence of contraindication and this may well reflect a fast learning curve.

It may better reflect the benefit of fresh disturbance to an already disturbed brain. A disturbed brain may be locked into flawed structure. Shaking them up allows those connections to return to a more normal structure that uis also more stable. What i am saying is that gentle repetition of disturbance through chemistry will lead to natural healing. Thus the positive impact of CBD on PTSD which we know stems from physical damage.

This is a novel concept but it also reflect the known physical plasticity of the brain.

Psilocybin mushrooms, the “magic”
fungi famous for giving users hallucinations and spiritual insight, may
not actually be supernatural, but they come pretty close. A growing body
of research suggests they might help treat a range of mental disorders,
and there’s little evidence that they’re addictive.

But the world of magic mushrooms
extends far beyond psilocybin. Though they may not have intended it,
these fungal chemical factories are synthesizing chemicals that just so
happen to carry beneficial properties for humans, as well.

Mushroom 101

From Agaricus bisporus (portobello) to Amanita phalloides,
the aptly-named, very lethal death cap toadstool, mushrooms come in all
manner of sizes, colors, and flavors. They’re part of the fungi
kingdom, along with molds and yeasts. Some are microscopic; another can
be considered the largest living organism on Earth. With only around 100,000 species described, out of an estimated5.1 million,
fungi make ideal candidates for bioprospecting, or extracting useful
compounds for pharmaceuticals and other things from nature.

Mushrooms are actually just the
above-ground portion of certain fungi. Some species grow a root-like
system called a mycelium, which sprout into mushrooms when they reach
the surface. They sprinkle spores, the fungal equivalent of a seed, so
the cycle can begin again. It sounds suspiciously plant-like, but
mushrooms are actually closer genetically to animals than to plants.

You might be most familiar with the
mushrooms in your food, but the chemicals they’ve evolved to produce
over time have turned out to have a wide range of uses for our bodies,
as well. And when you hear “chemicals and mushrooms”, you’re probably
thinking psilocybin.

There are nearly200 species of psilocybin mushrooms, but why the fungi evolved this psychedelic chemical in the first place is still a mystery. The effects on humans
are far from mysterious, though, given the decades of amateur
experimentation by budding psychonauts. Visual hallucinations are
common, as well as feelings of euphoria and a sense of oneness with
others or the world at large. Less inviting results include
disorientation, paranoia and anxiety.

Research interest in psilocybin has trended upwards in recent years, and researchers have begun to test its potential for treating things like depression and PTSD. Early results are positive, and indicate that it could likely help treat a range of mental disorders.

How, and why, the mushrooms actually make the drug is still largely unknown, though.

Two studies released this year aimed to answer this question. The first, published in Evolution Letters, says it may be used as an insecticidal defense against pests. However, a recently published study on the preprint server bioRxiv (meaning it’s not yet peer-reviewed) suggested psilocybin may be used to attract bugs, not repel them, serving as an “insect-vectored spore dispersal” i.e. spreading spores like birds scatter seeds.

To test this, scientists from the United Kingdom gathered and washed Psilocybe cyanescens,
a psilocybin mushroom, that had been covered in dark-winged fungus
gnats. Days later they watched as maggots emerged and grew into flies.

“It was a very simple, non-replicated
experiment that showed flies can live in and emerge from these
mushrooms,” says Bryn Dentinger, the study’s lead author and mycology
curator at the Natural History Museum of Utah. “So I don’t think that,
the insecticidal property, we can’t rule it out entirely, but it’s
clearly not a black-and-white scenario.”

It’s a reminder that for all its
psychedelic properties, psilocybin wasn’t made for humans. It and other
chemicals derived from mushrooms are the result of evolutionary
tinkering over the course of millions of years aimed at helping the
fungi survive. The trippy properties of shrooms are just a side effect
of an evolutionary arms race — though that doesn’t mean we can’t benefit
from it.

Fungal Serotonin

Humans may be separated from fungi by millions of years, but there are still surprising similarities between us.

For example, one genus of mushrooms, Panaeolus, producesserotonin
— an important neurotransmitter in our brains, thought to regulate
moods like depression. Psilocybin is actually quite close chemically to
serotonin, so it’s not that surprising. There’s even reason to think
that the mushrooms could be using these chemicals to communicate between
cells like we do.

The serotonin system is very ancient
evolutionarily, Dentinger explains, and mushrooms could have receptors
on their cell membranes for this neurotransmitter. But, to his
knowledge, it’s never been tested.

“There’s reason to expect that it was
in the common ancestor of animals and fungi,” he says. “It wouldn’t
surprise me at all to find out that these molecules like psilocybin may
in fact be about mediating interactions either between cells within
individual fungal organisms or between fungal organisms.”

Dentinger is quick to point out that
it doesn’t mean mushrooms are conscious, though. “It’s just that they
may be mediating communication in a way that may be analogous to
neurocommunication in our own brains,” he says.

Inocybe aeruginascens,
a tobacco-colored species with greenish stains and blue bruises
produces three serotonin-like chemicals. Found widely across central
Europe, it contains an almost equal amount of three hallucinogenic
compounds: psilocybin, baeocystin, and aeruginascin. I.aeruginascens
is the only fungus known to produce aeruginascin, and there are hints
it could be a better option for therapeutic use than psilocybin is.

No uncomfortable, terrifying trips have been reported with I.aeruginascens
mushrooms, even in cases of accidental ingestion, according to Jochen
Gartz, a German mycologist and chemist, who first discovered and named
aeruginascin in the ‘80s. For more than 20 years, he’s looked for the
molecule in other mushroom species. He hasn’t found it.

“I know of about 50 experiences with Inocybe aeruginascens
and half are intoxications in the field where people at the beginning
thought that they have mistaken an edible and common species with [an]
unknown toxic mushroom,” Gartz, author of Magic Mushrooms Around the World,
says in an email. But instead of freaking out about dying, Gartz says,
these accidental fungus eaters usually have calm, euphoric episodes,
often with “colorful mystical experiences.”

That’s why Gartz thinks this mushroom
may be a better candidate for treating mental health disorders like
depression, as well as for migraines and cluster headaches. Due to its
chemical structure, it’s unlikely to cross the blood-brain barrier. That
means it could help to moderate the effects of psilocybin, perhaps by
blocking receptors elsewhere in the body, Gartz says. Damping down on
psychedelic side effects is an important consideration if such compounds
are ever to see therapeutic use.

But Richard Hartnell, an analyst at the cannabis testing center EVIO Labs, isn’t so sure.

“I’m skeptical of the notion that
aeruginascin would significantly modulate the effects of a psilocybin
trip, but it’s possible. I’d be very surprised if any controlled,
blinded studies have been done of this,” Hartnell says in an email.
“That research almost certainly hasn’t been done yet, and it’s likely
that we won’t know the therapeutic applications of most or all of these
compounds until we de-schedule psilocybin and its analogs.”

As with many mushrooms of potential pharmacological interest, the literature on I.aeruginascens is
scant. This means that we still don’t know how it could potentially
help us, and neither do we know what the dangers might be. That’s not
true for every mushroom, though.

The Mighty Toadstool

With appearances ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Super Mario, no psychoactive fungus is as iconic as Amanita muscaria,
the fly agaric mushroom. These archetypal red-and-white toadstools
don’t contain a drop of psilocybin, yet they’re wildly mind-bending.

Although not as deadly as popularly
believed, fly agarics contain two hallucinogenic compounds — muscimol
and ibotenic acid — that are notorious for producing a delirious,
dream-like trip. The shrooms can produce euphoria, and more rarely,
muscle spasms, coma, and Lilliputian and Gulliverianhallucinations — feelings of shrinking or growing. (Lewis Carroll knew his stuff.)

Dentinger says that the two compounds
are probably used by the mushrooms to keep bugs and other pests away —
there’s a history of them being used to kill house flies, he says.

There are no known medical uses for
these two drugs, but they’ve helped advance research nonetheless. For
example, small injections of ibotenic acid, which is a potent
neurotoxin, turn out to be a very precise means of creating brain lesions.

Removing or damaging a section of the
brain helps scientists observe what might stop working, providing
insights in the functions of different brain regions. This highly
targeted technique has shed light on mechanisms related tovisual motion processing,spatial learning, and neural pathways linked toAlzheimer’s.

Muscimol, too, has proven useful. At
the behest of the pharmaceutical giant Lundbeck, renowned Danish chemist
Povl Krogsgaard-Larsen began developing numerous synthetic variations
of muscimol in the 1970s.

Eventually he discoveredgaboxadol, originally called THIP, a less toxic version of muscimol. The varied clinical life of gaboxadol included trials as a pain reliever, a treatment for anxiety, ahypnotic sleep aid, and as a treatment for a movement disorder calledtardive dyskinesia.

For multiple reasons, including strange psychiatricside effects such as disorientation, dizziness,and sedation, the drug didn’t stick, and it was never approved for medical use.

But gaboxadol isn’t done yet. In 2015, Lundbecksold biopharma company Ovid Therapeutics the rights to gaboxadol. It’s been fast-tracked by the FDA as a treatment for two raregenetic disorders, Angelman Syndrome andFragile X Syndrome. Krogsgaard-Larsen synthesized a few other analogs of muscimol as well, those too could prove to have therapeutic uses.

And that’s just a single species of mushroom — there are potentially millions more. Amanita muscaria just happens to have been studied a little more closely than many.

Not Just LSD

Mushrooms aren’t the only fungi that
contain promising compounds. The Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann is, of
course, famous for developing the psychedelic LSD from ergot, a fungi in
the genus Claviceps
that infects grasses like tall fescue. But Hofmann is also responsible
for developing other ergot-derived drugs on the market today, includingmethylergometrine, used to stop bleeding after childbirth;dihydroergotamine, a migraine drug; andergoloid mesylates,
a mixture of three ergot alkaloids that is prescribed for dementia. He
even found 2-Bromo-LSD, a non-intoxicating drug that could treatcluster headaches without hallucinatory side effects.

Carolyn Young, an associate professor
at Noble Research Institute, has been studying ergot and related fungi
for many years. She’s intrigued by the extraordinary diversity of the alkaloids these fungi produce, many of which still haven’t been studied.

Why ergot produces so many compounds may have to do with an evolutionary concept called “bet hedging,”
Young says. It’s a strategy that involves producing a variety of
evolutionary responses to help an organism respond to a range of
situations. (The same theory could apply to psilocybin mushrooms and the
many serotonin-related chemicals they produce.)

It’s resulted in a range of chemical
options for researchers to examine. And in ergot, the genes that produce
these alkaloids are found in clusters, which Young says may make them
easier for us to genetically modify.

“That helps us understand those
pathways better, to manipulate, to make gene knockouts,” Young says.
“There is a whole industry behind synthetic biology and getting
microorganisms to create more compounds for us.”

Ergot has a symbiotic relationship
with the grasses it infects, Young says, and help them to spread their
seeds around. The chemicals ergot produces likely play a role in this
relationship, though what that is, we don’t know.

“The plant has some selectable
advantage when that fungus is in there,” she says. “Otherwise, that
fungus wouldn’t be there — nature would have crossed it out already.”

Most, if not all of these fungal
molecules are constructed using L-tryptophan, an essential amino acid
commonly found in mushrooms that is used to build many different
proteins in our bodies, as well as neurotransmitters like serotonin and
melatonin. Aside from knowing that it’s important for them, Young says
we don’t have a good answer for why tryptophan shows up in mushrooms,
too. But, as with other therapeutic compounds in mushrooms, the
coincidence could pay off for humans

Many fungal compounds remain
completely unstudied — and the fact that some are still illegal makes it
even more difficult to probe their secrets. Others, like aeruginascin,
muscimol, and many ergot-derived compounds are open to researchers,
though. The only thing standing in the way of more research is funding.
If the few we have studied is any indication, the potential payoff could
be large.

“Sometimes we don’t fully appreciate
that ecological bioactivity of these compounds,” Young says. “Whatever
it is specifically that they may be doing, we’ve got a lot to learn
about it.”

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18 years old, having cleaned out my HS library, I concluded the only ambition worth having was becoming a great genius. An inner voice cheered. Yet it is my path I have shared much to the Human Gesalt. Mar 2017 - 4.56 Mil Pg Views, March 2013 - Posted my paper introducing CLOUD COSMOLOGY & NEUTRAL NEUTRINO described as the SPACE TIME PENDULUM. Sep 2010 -My essay titled A NEW METRIC WITH APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICS AND SOLVING CERTAIN HIGHER ORDERED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS has been published in Physics Essays(AIP) June 2010 quarterly. 40 years ago I took an honors degree in applied mathematics from the University of Waterloo. My interest was Relativity and my last year there saw me complete a 900 level course under Hanno Rund on his work in Relativity. I continued researching new ideas and knowledge since that time and I have prepared a book for publication titled Paradigms Shift. I maintain my blog as a day book and research tool to retain data, record impressions, interpretations and to introduce new insights to readers.